Indian Partnership Act
Abbey Synnott
President Biden and Prime Minister Modi announced the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET) in May 2022 to elevate and expand our strategic technology partnership and defense industrial cooperation between the governments, businesses, and academic institutions of our two countries.
The United States and India affirm that the ways in which technology is designed, developed, governed, and used should be shaped by our shared democratic values and respect for universal human rights. We are committed to fostering an open, accessible, and secure technology ecosystem, based on mutual trust and confidence, that will reinforce our democratic values and democratic institutions.
The United States and India underlined their commitment to working to resolve issues related to regulatory barriers and business and talent mobility in both countries through a standing mechanism under iCET. This followed the January 30 roundtable hosted by the U.S.-India Business Council with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, and other senior U.S. and Indian officials and brought together more than 40 CEOs, university presidents, and thought leaders from both countries to accelerate opportunities for increased technology cooperation.
To expand and deepen our technology partnership, the United States and India are launching new bilateral initiatives and welcoming new cooperation between our governments, industry and academia in the following domains:
The United States and India look forward to the next iCET meeting in New Delhi later in 2023. The National Security Councils of both countries will coordinate with their respective ministries, departments and agencies to work with their counterparts to advance cooperation, and to engage with stakeholders to deliver on ambitious objectives ahead of the next meeting.
We'll be in touch with the latest information on how President Biden and his administration are working for the American people, as well as ways you can get involved and help our country build back better.
The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF), formed in 2017, is an independent non-profit, non-governmental, and non-partisan organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices across both countries.
Through its network of 400+ global companies, USISPF bridges the gap between business and government and fosters closer public-private sector partnerships across all facets of the economy and society in the United States and India.
The Summit was the first high-level U.S.-India dialogue post the General Elections in India and touched on themes of the deep friendship between the United States and India and elevating the most important strategic partnership of the 21st century.
We were privileged to welcome senior White House officials, Neera Tanden, Domestic Policy Advisor to President Biden, Jon Finer, Principal Deputy National Security Advisor. We also had the honor of hosting Senator Dan Sullivan, Senator Steve Daines, Ambassador, Sripriya Ranganathan, USISPF board members Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM, and Purna Saggurti, Vice Chairman of Bank of America, officials from the US Government and Embassy of India, and other distinguished guests.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the U.S. for a historic state visit on the invitation of U.S. President Joe Biden from June 21-23, 2023. On the last day of his state visit, USISPF hosted PM Modi at the Kennedy Center. Prime Minister Modi delivered a special address at the landmark event with opening remarks by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In addition, USISPF presented the Distinguished Services Award for the first time to recognize contributions to strengthening defense ties between the U.S. and India. We were proud to honor General James Mattis, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Davies Family Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution, and General Manoj Mukund Naravane, Former Chief of Army Staff, Indian Army.
In 2021, we recognized that the global pandemic that ravaged the world also served as a call to action: we were proud to award our Leadership Award to Natarajan Chandrasekaran of Tata, Punit Renjen of Deloitte and Raj Subramaniam of FedEx for their outstanding work in their relief efforts to fighting the Covid-19 pandemic in India.
The award-winning Manchester India Partnership (MIP) was established in February 2018 to unite private businesses, academia and the public sector across India and Greater Manchester to build and strengthen trade, investment, cultural, and educational ties.
Establishing direct connectivity between Manchester and India has been the top priority for the MIP. As the sixth largest gateway to India in Europe, the strong underlying business and diaspora links between the UK North and India are driving a continued requirement for a direct route. The MIP supported the acquisition and launch of Jet Airways, Manchester to Mumbai in November 2018. This was one of the most successful direct flights to ever launch from Manchester Airport achieving over 90% load in its 3 months of service. The MIP continue to work closely with Manchester Airport to secure a new direct route which has the potential to unlock significant bilateral trade and investment opportunities.
The University of Salford also awarded the renowned Bollywood singer, Asha Bhosle, with an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree in recognition of her contribution to the field of music and her role in inspiring future generations to participate in arts and media.
All of these partnerships develop and deliver collaborative programmes in a wide range of disciplines which are of critical importance to the future of industry, including smart cities, health and wellbeing, biosciences and advanced manufacturing and robotics.
Equally culture is plentiful; from food, drink and shopping to music and world class museums and galleries. Currently 5 million is being invested to co-curate a new South Asia Gallery at Manchester Museum, due to open next year. To learn more about tourism, sport and culture in Manchester click here.
The Manchester India Partnership has dedicated representatives based in Manchester, Bangalore and Delhi who support companies looking to trade or invest between Manchester and India.To find out more about advanced manufacturing bilateral trade and collaborative opportunities in Manchester and India, get in touch with the team.
The sides renewed their commitment to work towards a just, orderly, and sustainable energy transition, which prioritizes access to reliable, affordable, and clean energy supply. Highlighting that India and the US represent the largest democracies, and the largest and fastest growing economies in the world, the sides underscored the importance of joint action and collaboration not only for bilateral progress but also for navigating the global energy transition.
The sides also welcomed the work done by the five pillars of the SCEP towards deepening the cooperation between the Public and Private sectors to support decarbonization in both countries, including through public-private task forces, reverse trade missions, India-US Business Roundtables chaired by the Ministers, and other commercial dialogues.
The sides emphasized the importance of promoting energy access, affordability and energy justice in each country. The sides also acknowledged that successfully achieving ambitious climate and clean energy aspirations necessitates coordinated efforts on development of energy transition roadmaps, capacity building, job skilling, and sharing of best practices at all levels of government. In that context, the sides agreed to work toward development of net zero villages in India to support the clean energy transition.
The sides discussed ways of advancing the positive agenda outlined by Prime Minister Modi and President Biden in their Joint Statement of June 22, 2023which welcomed efforts under the SCEP to develop and deploy energy storage technologies, expand collaboration in support of their respective national hydrogen strategies and cost reduction goals, and accelerate cooperation on new and emerging renewable energy technologies. To that end, the Ministers welcomed:
The sides welcomed cooperation between India and the United States to advance research, development and commercialization of technologies in the emerging fuels arena, including bio-ethanol, renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuels, and other advanced biofuels as a unique and valued asset to the transition to a cleaner energy future.
The Ministers affirmed the vision of President Biden and Prime Minister Modi for establishing the Global Biofuels Alliance. The Ministers discussed the role that the Global Biofuels Alliance will play in strengthening markets, facilitating global biofuels trade, development of concrete policy lesson-sharing and provision of technical support for national biofuels programs worldwide.
The sides also underscored the importance of a stable, sustainable, diversified, resilient, and globally responsible clean energy supply chain to enable energy transition pathways while minimizing risks and uncertainty.
Recognizing the role of carbon capture, utilization and storage to reduce emissions, the sides agreed to spur partnership in this area by building on existing cooperation and welcoming new collaboration including exploring the geologic carbon storage potential. The sides welcomed the addition of Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage as a work stream under the Emerging Fuels and Technology Pillar.
The sides also welcomed engagement through the Low-Emissions Gas Task Force to reduce emissions across the sector through deployment of emerging technologies (i.e., CCUS, hydrogen), alternative fuels, and methane abatement technologies. The Ministers welcomed the commercial partnerships facilitated by this platform.
The sides duly acknowledged the collaboration of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) with various Indian agencies including Indian Railways, NTPC Green National Skills Development Corporation, Skills Council for Green Jobs, and the Forum of Regulators.
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